USA Funds Connection Is ‘One-Stop Shop’ for Schools

Editor’s Note: The following is a feature from the USA Funds^® 2006 annual report. USA Funds Education Access Report is highlighting the students, financial-aid administrators and education-lending professional featured in the annual report to highlight the ways in which USA Funds is a trusted partner in changing times. To access the full report online, you’ll need Adobe Acrobat Reader.

USA Funds Connection^® is an online tool that serves as a gateway to products and services, information resources and personal-productivity tools for the financial-aid office. As LaToshia Everson of Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Ind., describes it, USA Funds Connection is a “one-stop shop.”

“USA Funds Connection is a central place for so many things, including rules and regulations and default-prevention information,” says Everson, assistant director of financial aid. “I use it every single day. It’s one of the first things I open when I come to work.”

USA Funds Connection permits financial-aid administrators to access a variety of key loan-delivery and support services by simply signing on to the portal. Users also can turn to USA Funds Connection as a centralized location to track important contacts and tasks. In 2006 a total of 94 schools were set up to use the portal.

In her current job since December 2005, Everson took the advice of a USA Funds
Services representative and began using USA Funds Connection in the spring. Soon many of Everson’s colleagues at Wabash followed suit.

She says she appreciates the portal’s ability to store contact information, and that the tool allows staff members to share that contact information with others. Additionally, Everson says, she turns to the portal to easily find the latest financial-aid information.

“I use it over and over again to keep up to date,” says Everson. “I know that the information I access through USA Funds Connection is correct, and I find it without going through a lot of different paperwork. It’s a really, really nice tool to have.”

With a background as a personal banker, Everson says her work at Wabash College represents her first opportunity to work with USA Funds — and USA Funds Connection is one reason she’s glad she has that opportunity.

“USA Funds provides a lot of resources, from training to the USA Funds Services representatives,” Everson says, “and USA Funds Connection just makes working with USA Funds that much better.”